


Cutting Roots

by SparrowStrike



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fix It, Found Family, Multi, Rating is for swearing and blood, tendaysoftenzo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26054914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparrowStrike/pseuds/SparrowStrike
Summary: It all happens fast. Mokuton responds to emotions and Tenzou’s angry. Next thing he knows, Tenzou has Danzou’s blood on his hands, 2 kids in dire need of a medic, and a horrible suspicion about the Uchiha Massacre.Written for TenDaysOfTenzo 2020 Day 3 (Rouge Shinobi) and Day 4 (Sensei)
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Yamato | Tenzou, Sai & Shin (Naruto), Sai & Yamato | Tenzou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 76





	Cutting Roots

At first Kakashi tried to ignore the banging, but it just kept going and the front door didn’t deserve that abuse.

Kakashi rolled off the couch and heaved himself to his feet with a groan. A quick glance at the clock said it was just after 2AM.  _ I’m going to give them so much shit, _ the teenager grumbled. He hadn’t been asleep, but it was a principles thing. When someone takes 3 days for bereavement, you don’t show up at their house at 2 in the morning.

“The world better be ending,” Kakashi growled as he pulled the door open. The words died on his lips as he recognized the anbu on his doorstep.

Tenzou was wearing his sleeping clothes, gray, standard issue for anbu. A splatter of what Kakashi assumed was blood crossed his chest. His shoulder length hair was messy and his eyes were too wide.

Something was very wrong.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Tenzou said. His voice was hollow. “We need help.”

Kakashi pulled the door open further. Standing behind Tenzou were 2 kids. They couldn’t be more than 5 or 6. The taller one, his hair looked about the same color as Kakashi’s in the moonlight, leaned heavily on the smaller, dark haired one. They both stared at Kakashi with blank expressions. 

Kakashi noticed they were both armed like shinobi from the kunai holsters on their thighs to the tantous on their backs. He stepped back inside and pulled the door with him, a silent invitation.

Tenzou staggered inside and the kids trailed him to Kakashi’s kitchen.

Kakashi stuck his head out the front door and looked up and down the street. There was no sign of any pursuers, for now.

Kakashi grabbed the first aid kit out of the kitchen cabinet and turned to Tenzou first. In the light of the kitchen, it was definitely blood on his gray shirt.

“Where are you hurt?” Kakashi asked.

Tenzou shook his head. “It’s not my blood.”

Kakashi narrowed his uncovered eye at his kohai.

“Shin’s sick.” 

Kakashi glanced at the kids. It was the dark haired one who’d spoken. He was holding the other boy upright in one of Kakashi’s chairs. 

Kakashi gave Tenzou one more look over before he shifted his focus to the kids.

Kakashi crouched down beside Shin. The other kid shied away from Kakashi, but refused to leave Shin’s side.

“I won’t hurt him,” Kakashi promised softly. 

The dark haired boy looked skeptical, but he didn’t draw a kunai so Kakashi wasn’t too worried.

Shin, didn’t look good. His skin was cold and clammy, and his cheeks were flushed with fever. At Kakashi’s urging he opened his eyes, but he couldn’t seem to focus on the shinobi’s face.

Kakashi put his ear against the kid’s chest and listened. Even without a stethoscope, he could hear the way each breath rattled.

Kakashi stood up and stepped back. “Shin needs to go to the hospital.”

The dark haired kid’s grip on Shin’s hand tightened.

“Can’t,” Tenzou muttered. “The hospital will just send him back to the anbu health center. They have orders not to interfere with Root.”

Kakashi whipped around and stared at Tenzou.

Tenzou was staring down at the blood on his shirt.

“You mean these kids are Root?” Kakashi demanded.

Tenzou didn’t say anything, just dabbed at the blood with his finger.

“Danzou-sama trained us,” the dark haired kid said from behind Kakashi. 

Kakashi didn’t take his off of Tenzou. “How long do we have before Danzou’s on my doorstep? Does he know you took them?”

“I killed him.” The words fell out of Tenzou’s mouth like rocks. He blinked a couple times, like he’d surprised himself. 

Kakashi’s eyes went wide. His mind was moving miles a minute. The only thought that stuck was,  _ we can’t stay. _

“He was making them fight,” Tenzou’s voice rose in pitch and volume, “Like Kiri. Like the Bloody Mist.” He sounded half hysterical when he finally looked up and met Kakashi’s eyes.

“Fuck.”

“I didn’t mean to do it. I heard them in the arena and went to see who was training. I asked what was going on and he told me and he said things…” Tenzou trailed off and his mouth twisted into an angry snarl, “things about the Third, the clan heads, and the Uchiha. He said things about you and Itachi and it just happened.”

Judging by the way the wooden floor was sprouting little branches and grabbing at Kakashi’s ankles, he didn’t have to guess what “it” was. Tenzou’s mokuton was powerful and it responded as much to his emotions as much as his thoughts. He’d worked so hard to wrestle it into submission, but there was only so much control you could exert over a kekkei genkai you were never meant to have.

“Good.” Kakashi’s tone left no room for argument and it surprised him as much as it did Tenzou. Just like that the tension in the room broke. 

Tenzou’s shoulders sagged with both exhaustion and relief. 

“Go get cleaned up,” Kakashi ordered. “Grab some clothes out of my closet and start packing go bags. Mine’s already packed, but you and the kids will need gear. It’s not worth the risk of going back to the anbu compound.”

Tenzou nodded once and made for the stairs.

Kakashi turned back to the kids. “What’s your name?” he asked the dark haired boy.

The kid hesitated. 

“ ‘S kay, Sai,” the other kid mumbled. His head was resting on Sai’s shoulder. If Sai moved, he would have fallen out of the chair.

The dark haired boy, Sai, glanced between Shin and Kakashi. “My name’s Sai. This is my brother, Shin. Please don’t let him die.”

Kakashi felt like someone kicked him in the chest. Instead of Sai, he was looking at another dark haired kid. “Promise me you’ll protect Rin.”

Kakashi took a shuddering breath. “I’ll do what I can. I’m not a medic.”

Sai nodded. He could accept that. 

“I’m going to move him to the couch,” Kakashi said and narrated the process. He figured if he didn’t startle the kids, they were less likely to instinctively put a kunai between his ribs. He’d seen first hand how efficient and skilled Root made their anbu. Just because they were kids didn’t mean they weren’t lethal.

Kakashi slipped a hand under Shin’s knees and another behind his shoulders and lifted him out of the chair. The kid seemed to weigh nothing. He shivered and shifted in Kakashi’s arms, pressing closer. 

Sai trailed Kakashi like a shadow from the kitchen to the living room. 

Kakashi hummed softly. He remembered his dad doing this when he was small and sick. If the tune had words, Kakashi’d never learned them.

“Can you put a pot of water on the stove and get it boiling?” Kakashi asked Sai.

Sai nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Kakashi stared down at Shin and considered his options. He had some fever tablets. They could bundle him in blankets and try to sweat out the fever, but that wouldn’t do anything for his lungs. They were definitely full of fluid.

Kakashi checked Shin’s bulse. It was light, fast, and irregular. The fever was the easiest thing to treat, but probably not the thing most likely to kill him. 

Sai stuck his head back in. “It’s boiling.”

Kakashi nodded. He grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and tucked it around Shin. “Good. The steam might help clear his lungs.”

Kakashi carried the pot into the living room and set it on a stack of hot pads beside the couch. He put the fever tablets in Shin’s mouth. They were the sort that dissolved. 

“How long has he been sick?” Kakashi asked Sai.

“Forever. He coughs when we run and sometimes he wakes up and he can’t breathe. It’s been getting worse for 3 months. He used to cough a lot, but not anymore,” Sai explained.

Kakashi nodded. “Where do you sleep?”

“We have barracks.”

“Cold, damp, crowded?”

“Yeah. Lots of people get sick. Danzou-sama takes them away when they complain and we don’t see them again. Shin didn’t say anything, because he didn’t want to leave me,” Sai’s voice was small and he clutched the hem of his black shirt in little fists.

Kakashi wanted to scream. Instead he held his breath and counted to five before he let it out. “Watch Shin. I’m going to go see if I have any other medicine upstairs.”

Sai settled on the floor beside the couch without a word.

Kakashi found upstairs Tenzou digging through the closet for blankets.

“How are you holding up?” Kakashi asked.

Tenzou shook his head. “I don’t know. I feel numb.”

“I don’t know if Shin is going to make it. I’m thinking he’s got pneumonia and probably something else too. Pneumonia’s usually a secondary infection.”

Tenzou sighed. “They didn’t want to fight. Danzou was trying to force them. The other kids ran when I… Shin wasn’t able to run and Sai wouldn’t leave him.”

“I’ve got some antibiotics in the medicine cabinet. They’re old, but they might help,” Kakashi sighed. “I need to know what Danzou said about Itachi.”

Tenzou hugged the blanket he was folding to his chest. “He didn’t say anything outright, but the comparison he was making was between you and me and Itachi. He said Itachi was a good soldier. That the new Root were all good soldiers.”

Kakashi leaned against the wall. The world was spinning. He and Tenzou shared the same critical flaw in Danzou’s eyes. The fact that they were both still breathing was evidence to their failure as soldiers. They questioned orders. They disobeyed orders. They’d failed to kill each other and failed to kill their hearts. 

“I think Itachi might have been following orders,” Tenzou gave voice to the half formed thought Kakashi was trying to grasp.

“Fuck,” Kakashi breathed. 

Tenzou just nodded. They’d both taken Itachi’s betrayal hard, but Kakashi had seemed determined to shoulder the blame. He was Itachi’s captain for 2 years, he said he should have seen the instability in the Uchiha.

“I can’t think about this right now,” Kakashi muttered. He turned on his heel and began ransacking the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

The bottle of antibiotics was almost full. They were woefully out of date, but Kakashi had read somewhere that most medication remained effective well after its expiration date so he’d kept them. The bigger issue was that they were dosed for an adult man. 

Behind the antibiotics were an untouched steroid dose pack. Kakashi grabbed those too. They’d been meant to be taken alongside the antibiotics.

Kakashi mentally did the math, guessing at how much Shin weighed and how to break the pills, as he walked back down the stairs.

Sai had moved from the floor to the arm of the couch, where he could perch and easily keep his fingers on the pulse point in Shin’s throat.

Kakashi decided to give the kid a whole antibiotic and half the starting dose out of the steroid pack.

SInce it looked unlikely that Shin could swallow the pills, Kakashi ground them up and mixed them with a little bit of milk, it was the only thing he had that might mask some of the flavor. 

“This is going to taste pretty awful,” Kakashi warned Shin. He wasn’t even sure the kid could hear him now. “But you need to try to swallow it.” 

The sludgy mixture slid down Shin’s tongue and he whined. His face scrunched up, but he didn’t try to spit it out.

“Good job,” Kakashi soothed.

Shin seemed to settle. 

Sai looked at Kakashi. His eyes were so dark that Kakashi couldn’t tell where the pupil ended and the iris started. It gave him a perpetually wide eyed look. With his blank expression, he reminded Kakashi of the old legends about fae and changelings. “What happens now?” Sai asked.

Kakashi hesitated. “We’ll see how Shin is in a couple hours and go from there.”

Sai nodded. “We’re traitors now, aren’t we?”

Kakashi flinched. 

“No. The village betrayed us first,” Tenzou said from the bottom of the stairs. He had 3 backpacks in his arms that he dumped on the floor by the door. “Danzou did horrible things. The village is better without him.”

Sai looked at Tenzou and cocked his head to the side in confusion. “But we’ll need to run away right?”

Tenzou glanced at Kakashi. “You and Shin are going to come with me. We’ll find someplace nice and quiet where Shin can get better.”

Kakashi frowned. “I’m going with you.”

Tenzou shook his head. “I can’t ask that of you.”

“You aren’t asking. I’m telling you. I’m going with you and we’re going to get answers.” Kakashi’s jaw was set and there was a spark of fire in his dark eye that Tenzou hadn’t seen since before the Uchiha Massacre. 

Tenzou motioned for Kakashi to step into the kitchen. Out of sight and earshot of the kids, Tanzou met Kakashi’s questioning stare. “You want to go after Itachi.” It wasn’t a question.

Kakashi nodded. He’d argued against it just 2 days ago, when the blood hadn’t even dried yet. He refused to kill Itachi and he refused to let Tenzou shoulder that burden. Now, they had an excuse to take Itachi alive. 

“If Danzou ordered the massacre, he set Itachi up to take the blame. Itachi may have escaped the village, but there’s got to be Root anbu on his trail. Danzou couldn’t afford to have Itachi tell anyone the truth behind the massacre. It’d tear the village apart. At the very least the Hyuga would riot.”

“Assuming Itachi didn’t just snap like we all thought.” Tenzou said it without any weight. It didn’t make sense. Never had.

Kakashi nodded. “I want answers and Itachi needs backup. Even if he’s batshit crazy, he’s still part of Team Rho.”

Tenzou smiled at that. For someone with the moniker of Friend-Killer, Kakashi was the most loyal person Tenzou’d ever met. He pretended not to care, but when shit hit the fan, Kakashi was always ride or die. It was exactly why Tenzou knew he could do this. “I need you to stay here,” Tenzou said.

Kakashi’s head jerked in surprise. He’d thought when Tenzou smiled that the discussion was over. 

“I need someone here that I can trust and pass information to,” Tenzou explained. “I made this mess. I need to clean it up.”

“And Itachi’s my mess,” Kakashi argued.

Tenzou folded his arms. “He’s not your responsibility anymore. He was Danzou’s mess and, as the most senior member of Root, now he’s mine.”

Kakashi opened his mouth to keep arguing, but Tenzou cut him off.

“When Danzou’s death is discovered, it’s going to throw the village off balance. The Third loved him like a brother. Knowing how he reacted to Minato’s death and Orochimaru’s betrayal, it’d be foolish not to expect every politically hungry creep to come out of the woodwork and take advantage of the situation.”

Kakashi nodded. The Third had been relatively passive his second term. Everyone knew he’d lost his edge and his confidence with Orochimaru’s defection. If Kakashi were being generous he’d say that was why the man had such a blindspot towards Danzou.

“I need you here, the village needs you here, and so does Itachi. He left Sasuke for a reason.”

Kakashi’s shoulders dropped in defeat. Whatever deal Itachi had made with Danzou was now void. If the youngest Uchiha had any political protection, it died with Danzou. There were a lot of eyes on Sasuke and none of them were friendly.

Tenzou saw the fight go out of Kakashi. 

“Alright. I’ll let you go, but if you get yourself into trouble I’m coming after you.”

Tenzou nodded and put his hand on Kakashi’s shoulder. 

Kakashi pulled Tenzou into a hug. It was stiff and awkward, but neither of them made any move to pull away. Kakashi noted that Tenzou’d had another growth spurt. They were about the same height now and with Tenzou being 2 years younger than him, there was no doubt that he was going to end up taller. 

After a long minute, Kakashi let go of Tenzou. 

“Let’s go take care of your kohai,” Kakashi muttered and nudged Tenzou back towards the living room.

Kakashi watched Tenzou for a second before following. He was gangly, like most 14 year olds, but he moved like a veteran shinobi. Kakashi knew Tenzou could take care of himself, but that didn’t mean he liked the idea of letting him go alone.

Tenzou was bent over Shin, checking the kid’s temperature when Kakashi picked his way over to the couch. 

Kakashi caught Sai’s eye. “Congrats, you’re getting promoted. Welcome to Team Rho. We’ve got an impressive mission record, so don’t mess it up.” 

Sai sat up straighter and squared his shoulders.

Under his mask, Kakashi’s lips twitched into a humorless smile. “Our first mission is to determine the truth behind the Uchiha Massacre and whether or not Danzou Shimaru intentionally destabilized the village. I’ll be running point in Konoha. Tenzou-san will be leading the away cell.”

Tenzou blinked in surprise. “I guess that means I’m getting a promotion too?”

“You were due,” Kakashi shrugged. “The 3 of you should get some sleep. I’ll watch Shin and wake you up before dawn.”

Sai reluctantly let Kakashi make him a bed on the opposite end of the couch from Shin. They were both so small that their feet didn’t even touch.

Next, Kakashi shooed Tenzou upstairs to the bedroom. 

Kakashi took up Sai’s previous post on the arm of the couch and watched the kids sleep.

Tenzou didn’t sleep long. An hour later, he was back in the living room. He sat on the floor by Kakashi’s feet and didn’t say a word. 

Tenzou listened to the boys’ breathing and Kakashi’s soft humming. His heart was racing. His mind kept replaying the night over and over again, like it was still trying to believe that it had actually happened. 

Danzou had raised him. He’d thought of Danzou as his father for most of his life. When he learned the truth, he’d hated the man. But even then, the hate had been tainted. How could he really hate the man who made him what he was. Who was he without Danzou?

Shin whimpered in his sleep. 

Kakashi reached out to brush a hand across the kid’s sweat soaked forehead and murmured soothing promises until the boy settled.

Tenzou tensed. The magnitude of what he was taking on crashed down on him. He had no memories of his life before age 6, when Danzou saved him from Orochimaru’s abandoned lab. When he was sick, Danzou told him to push through it. When he was hurt, Danzou told him to get used to the pain. When he was scared, Danzou told him to bury it. 

Tenzou had no idea how to care for a kid, let alone a kid like him. 

“Stop panicking,” Kakashi ordered. His voice was low to keep from waking the kids.

Tenzou took a shuddering breath. 

“Just be the person you needed when you were their age,” Kakashi whispered.

Tenzou closed his eyes and nodded. He couldn’t get the words out around the lump in his throat to tell Kakashi that he was the person Tenzou had needed.

“You can do this.”

\---

Shin’s fever broke an hour before sunrise and he slipped deeper into an exhausted sleep.

Kakashi bundled the kid in a couple blankets and settled him in Tenzou’s arms. 

Sai knew how to shuushin, so the 2 older anbu figured he’d be able to keep up. 

Kakashi stood in the doorway and watched the road long after the 3 Root anbu had disappeared. 

When the sun started to brush the roof, Kakashi went inside to burn Tenzou’s bloodstained sleeping clothes and destroy the rest of the evidence of his houseguests.

Too full of adrenaline to sleep, Kakashi spent the rest of the morning drafting his resignation from the anbu. With 2 of his teammates now officially rogue shinobi, he’d never be trusted again. 

Besides, Kakashi had a mission and he could do it better outside of the anbu.

Sasuke needed someone to protect him and train him. Danzou had been the driving force behind Konoha’s jinchuuriki policy. With him dead, Kakashi intended to carry out the promise he’d made to Minato and Kushina’s graves. 

Tenzou had his kohai. It was time for Kakashi to go get his.

\---

Tenzou stopped late in the morning, just outside of a small town in the middle of nowhere. 

Sai was exhausted and Shin’s fever was back. It was time for Shin to get another dose of medication and they were far enough from Konoha that Tenzou was willing to let their little team rest.

The woman at the front desk of the town’s only inn took one look at the tall, skinny teenager in an anbu uniform and the 2 kids with him and handed the teen a room key. One look was all it took to decide this was the sort of shinobi stuff you didn’t interfere with.

As soon as the door was open, Sai staggered in and collapsed onto the nearest of the 2 double beds. Tenzou was pretty sure the kid was asleep before his legs stopped moving.

Tenzou settled Shin on the other side of the same bed as Sai and dug the medicine Kakashi had sent out of his backpack.

Shin stirred and opened his eyes. 

“Hey,” Tenzou said softly.

“Hi,” Shin mumbled. He smiled when Sai scrambled across the bed and pressed himself against Shin’s side.

“Think you can swallow some pills?” Tenzou asked.

Shin nodded. He took the pills Tenzou put in his hand and sipped from a water bottle. There was color back in his face and when he coughed it sounded like the fluid in his lungs was breaking up.

Tenzou breathed a sigh of relief. They were going to make it. They’d stay here for a few days, let the search parties pass them by, and then make for the Land of Rain. The last reports had Itachi crossing the border and heading towards Ame with a masked man. 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen very many Tenzou adopts Sai fics and decided this was the time to further that agenda (with bonus alive!Shin). If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, all I ask is for a link to whatever you write because I want to read it. I have the rest of this AU broadly plotted out (I can post my outline as a chapter 2 if anyone really wants to know what I think happens next), but I wrote this piece with the general intent of leaving the rest of the story up to the reader's discretion. I might come back and add to this someday, but I'm currently up to my neck in WIPs so if it happens it won't happen anytime soon.


End file.
